


It Was Always You

by BeccaAnne814



Series: Bucky Barnes x Reader Oneshots [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeccaAnne814/pseuds/BeccaAnne814
Summary: You and Bucky have been friends for years.  What happens when a strange dream makes him question his relationship with you?  This Oneshot is base of Maroon 5'sIt Was Always You.





	It Was Always You

_Bucky had a moment of confusion until he looked down and saw the familiar grass of the baseball field beneath his feet. Yankee Stadium. Game day. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he looked up and turned a full three-sixty to take it all in. The bleachers surrounding him were empty now, the normal detritus left behind from fans too excited from a resounding win to worry about throwing away their empty popcorn boxes or plastic cups that had once been full to the brim with their favorite beer. His team had already headed back to the locker room to shower and speak to the hoard of reporters waiting for them, but he was waiting for someone. He was waiting for her._

_When he saw her walking across the field toward him, his heart began to swell. It wasn't until he saw her that he realized that everything around him was in black and white, like some rerun of an old I Love Lucy episode. She was wearing his jersey, but that was nothing new - she always wore his number when she came to see him play. The waning light of the setting sun seemed to encase her in an ethereal glow as her face broke out in a smile. She was the only spot of color in a world of gray, and he could see the light reflecting off her beautifully expressive eyes as they lit up at the sight of him. A feeling washed over him, but he couldn't quite place it as he watched the grass beneath her feet begin to turn green. With every step she took, color began to bleed from her and spread throughout the stadium until the entire world was enveloped in the full spectrum of color - even colors he'd never seen, let alone imagined._

_Before he could figure out the strange emotion that was clouding his senses, he noticed one other detail. She wasn’t alone. A man was walking beside her, but he wasn't someone Bucky recognized, and for a moment he was confused as to why this strange man was with YN. He watched as she turned that radiant smile away from him and directed it toward the man she was with. It was only then that he realized that they were holding hands._

_"Hi, Bucky," she said once she was close enough for him to hear her. "Great game today."_

_"Thanks," he said lamely, still shocked to see her holding hands with some guy he'd never met before._

_As she approached him, she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before snuggling up to the other man. "I wanted to introduce you to my fiancé, Jacob."_

_Fiancé? Since when had YN stared dating? Surely, she would have mentioned a boyfriend to either him or Steve as some point. Bucky struggled to comprehend what was happening, but he was finding it hard to breathe. It felt as though a vice had started to close around his heart, and he thought he might pass out. He tried to speak, but a voice from the intercom system interrupted their reunion, and he became even more confused._

_"Ladies and gentlemen, we have started our descent into the New York area, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full, upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins."_

_"I guess it's time for me to go," YN said as she gave him one last smile._

_Bucky tried to speak, but a sharp pain in his right side had him gasping as YN and the baseball field around him began to fade away._

 

 "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Steve said as he jabbed his best friend in the ribs again. "You having a nightmare or something? You're covered in sweat."

Bucky shook his head and wiped the moisture from his forehead as the Captain continued his announcement, "Please turn off all electronic devices until we are safely parked at the gate. The flight attendants are currently passing around the cabin to make a final check and collect any remaining cups and glasses. Cabin service is now terminated. Thank you."

"Just a weird dream," he told Steve as he looked out the window of the plane. They'd taken a red-eye flight from Los Angeles the night before, so the sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon. He usually slept fairly well on these flights since the team spent so much time in the air traveling from one city to the next during baseball season. He just couldn't shake this dream, though. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much that YN had brought a guy to the game with her. She had been friends with him and Steve since kindergarten and it wasn't like he hadn't met a few of her boyfriends over the years. Maybe it was because the guy in his dream hadn't just been a boyfriend - he'd been her fiancé.

Shooting a quick glance in Steve's direction, he saw the look of concern on his friend’s face and he couldn't help but remember the first day they'd ever met YN. Steve had been wearing that same expression on his face as he and Bucky stood off to one corner of the kindergarten classroom. Steve hadn't been every woman's fantasy back when he'd been five - far from it. He was barely three feet tall and only weighed about thirty pounds with chronic asthma and a list of other ailments a mile long. Steve and Bucky had grown up in the same apartment complex in Brooklyn, and the the two boys had been inseparable since they could walk and talk. They hadn't been looking to making new friends that first day of kindergarten, but YN had had other ideas. She'd seen the two boys standing off by themselves in the corner and made it her mission to befriend them.

Bucky was used to protecting Steve from bullies that picked on him because of his size, so when this precocious little girl marched up to them with a determined look on her face, he'd shot a quick glance toward Steve before stepping in front of him and puffing out his chest. Steve had looked concerned and a little sad that he wasn't even going to make it through the first day of kindergarten without someone picking on him, but once YN had begun to speak, both of the boys had been mesmerized by her. She'd rolled her eyes at Bucky's protective stance and peeked around him to give Steve a big smile. Introducing herself, she'd informed the two boys that she was their new friend and if anyone gave them any problems they could deal with her. Bucky and Steve had shared a look of surprise, but realizing that they didn't really have a choice, their duo magically turned into a trio, and they hadn't regretted it for a moment since that fateful day.

Now Bucky was faced with this feeling that he couldn't describe. Well, he could describe it, but it didn't make any sense when he put it in the context of how he’d always felt about YN. She was his friend, had been his friend for as long as he could remember, so why was he suddenly jealous of a man that didn't exist?

"Bucky?" Steve asked, concerned that his friend looked so disturbed.

It had only been a few moments since Steve had jolted him awake, but his mind was working a mile a minute as he tried to process both the dream and the implications that it was now having on his psyche. "You ever have a dream that's so real it's hard for you to figure out what's truth and what's fantasy?"

Steve raised an eyebrow in shock. "That must have been some dream. What was it about?"

"YN," Bucky answered quietly as he turned to look back out the window as the plane began descending toward home.

 

 The entire day Bucky was plagued with thoughts of YN - thoughts he knew he shouldn't be having about his friend. His team had a game that afternoon, and he knew he should be focusing on that, but the dream wouldn't leave him alone. Finally giving in to the inevitable, he began to wonder how long he'd been in love with her. Had it been that day in kindergarten, or was it that one time in fifth grade when she'd agreed to be Steve's date to the Snowball dance and he'd felt that first inkling of jealousy even though she and Steve were only going as friends and he was taking the most popular girl in school. Maybe it had been in Junior High when she'd spent the entire summer as a camp counselor upstate and had come back to school in September with a tan and curves that he hadn't thought she'd had back in May. Then again, it could've been that night in tenth grade when they'd been playing spin the bottle at a party and they'd been forced to kiss in front of all of their friends. Looking back on their lives together, Bucky finally realized that he'd clung to the idea that she was just his friend and nothing more. Did she felt the same way about their friendship, or could she possibly think there could be something more between them?

Letting out a scream of frustration, Bucky paced the empty locker room. The team had already left to begin warmups and he knew he should be out there with them, but he just couldn't shake these feelings. He knew she'd be in the stands tonight, just like she was every home game, and a part of him feared that his dream was really a premonition of what awaited him at the end of the night. Now that he'd finally admitted that he was in love with her, he couldn't stand the thought of another man looking at her, let alone touching her. But what if she didn't feel the same way? What if he made a move and ruined one of the most important relationships in his life? Could he risk losing her?

A sudden realization hit him as his heart began to pound and the air in his lungs began to choke him. He risked losing her either way. Either he kept his mouth shut and watched his dream eventually become a reality, or he took a chance tonight and let her know how he felt. Only one of those scenarios had the potential for a happy ending for the two of them, so he steeled his nerves and vowed to tell her once he and the team sent the Red Sox back to Boston in tears.

 

Steve had kept an eye on his friend since they'd landed in Queens this morning. He'd sat back in silence and watched his two best friends skirt around the truth for years, but he was hopeful that Bucky had finally woken up and realized that none of the models or actresses he'd dated over the years would ever fulfill him. He'd known the two of them had been in love with each other since the moment they’d met, but Bucky was a special kind of stupid when it came to women - not that he was any better. He'd pined away for Peggy Carter since she'd moved to Brooklyn from London back in Junior High. It wasn't until he'd grown over a foot one summer, joined the High School baseball team, and Bucky had helped him build up some muscle in the gym, that he'd finally taken a chance. He smiled as he remembered her poking him in the chest with a disapproving look on her face as she'd chastised him for making her wait so long. He'd been scared that she would reject him when he'd been short and sickly, but he'd found out soon enough that she'd seen past his own perceived flaws and had fallen in love with him before he’d grown into himself. Looking down at the ring on his left hand, he hoped that Bucky and YN could find the same kind of happiness that he and Peggy still shared to this day.

Steve watched as Bucky scanned the crowd, knowing he was looking for YN. She had season tickets with Peggy that he and Bucky had bought for them the year they'd both been signed after college. She never failed to show up to a game, so he was a little concerned when he didn't see her beside Peggy in her usual seat behind home plate. Casting a quick glance toward Bucky, Steve gave him an encouraging smile.

As they finished warming up, Steve continued to keep watch over Bucky, so he knew the moment YN entered the stadium from the look on his friend's face. Breathing a sigh of relief, he shot a glance in her direction and gave both women a wave before the team took their places along the first base line for the singing of the National Anthem.

 

YN'd had an odd feeling all day long, and she couldn't figure out why. From the moment she'd awakened at dawn, she'd felt out of sorts. Her uneasiness had continued throughout the day and it hadn't been until the moment she'd seen Bucky on the field that she was finally able to calm her nerves. The team had been in LA the past few days playing the Angels, but during the season YN usually went days on end without seeing either of her two best friends. Peggy had been tied up with meetings this afternoon so they'd drove separately to the field. YN had been caught up in traffic on I-87, so she'd been late, which only added to her frazzled state of mind.

Now she was standing beside Peggy as some pop star she couldn't name sang the National Anthem. Taking her eyes off the flag for a just a moment, she zeroed in on Bucky as he faced the Marine Color Guard in the outfield just past second base. He was standing with his feet spread wide which made the fabric of his pants stretch across his backside in the most delectable way. What was it about boys in baseball pants that got her all hot and bothered? She looked at Steve for a moment and while he looked pretty good in his tight-fitting pants, it just wasn’t the same. Maybe it was just Bucky that affected her this way.

“Stop staring at his arse,” Peggy whispered when the song was over and they began taking their seats.

Whipping her head around to face her friend, she felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her before she gained control of herself. Fixing a smirk on her face, she replied, “You’ve got to admit that someone designed those pants intentionally just so women would come to watch and drool.”

Letting out a hearty laugh, Peggy playfully smacked YN on the shoulder. “Yes, but you should probably refrain from admiring the view during the National Anthem.”

Shrugging her shoulders as she leaned back in her seat, she asked, “Why do you care? It’s not like it’s your nation’s anthem.”

“Pfft,” Peggy said with a wave of her hand. “I’m married to America’s golden boy. I may have dual citizenship, but it’s an unspoken rule that I have to know all the words to The Star Spangled Banner and eat my weight in apple pie.”

The two shared a laugh as the game started. Over the years, YN had begun to cherish her friendship with Peggy. She’d originally seen her as a threat to her friendship with the boys, and had been apprehensive when Steve had started dating her. Bucky had been a ladies’ man from an early age, but as long as Steve stayed single, YN would never have to feel like the fifth wheel. Peggy had made it clear from the beginning that she understood that Steve came as a package deal with YN and Bucky. The outspoken brunette had instantly become an integral part of their group and YN was glad to have another woman around to balance out the overflow of testosterone.

As the the innings wore on, YN had become convinced that Bucky was paying more attention to her than he was to the game. She kept catching him stealing glances in her direction every time he was on base waiting for one of his teammates to come to bat. Writing it off as her imagination, and the remnants of nerves from her strange day, she settled in to watch the rest of the game.

It was the bottom of the ninth and the game was tied six to six. The bases were loaded and Bucky was up to bat. YN and Peggy were both on the edge of their seat as they watched him hit the bat against his cleats before taking his stance behind home plate. When Bucky turned around and gave her a wink, she felt as though a rug had been pulled out from under her. Had he ever done that before? No, she thought as butterflies began dancing a jig in her stomach - she would have remembered him doing that since she was having such an intense reaction to the flirtatious gesture.

The first pitch was called a strike and the fans began to boo. Bucky shook it off and readied himself for the second pitch. YN could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the sound of the blood rushing through her ears drowning out the sounds of the crowd around her. Time seemed to move in slow motion as the pitcher began his wind up and the ball started soaring through the air. Her hearing cleared just as the ball cracked against Bucky’s bat. All at once, the roar of the crowd grew so loud she could feel the sound reverberating in her chest. She jumped to her feet, her breath held in anticipation as the ball soared across the field. In her peripheral vision, she could see Bucky running toward first base, but her eyes were glued to the ball as it continued to fly over the heads of the outfielders toward the stands on the opposite side of the stadium for a grand slam home run.

Turning her gaze back to the infield, she watched as Bucky leisurely took his turn around the bases, knowing the ball he’d hit was currently resting in some lucky kid’s glove instead of his opponent’s. As he rounded third and began to head toward home, he looked up and caught her eye. She was too far away from him to read the expression on his face, but she knew it wasn’t one that she’d ever seen before. As the team enveloped him, his eyes never left hers. With another wink and a cocky salute, he finally turned his attention back to his teammates.

“What’s that all about?” Peggy asked as she began gathering her belongings.

“What are you talking about?” YN asked even though she knew exactly what Peggy was referring to.

Peggy gave her a knowing smile and raised an eyebrow without saying another word. “Say hi to Bucky for me, I need to get home to the kids before the babysitter loses her mind and quits on me again. Tell Steve I’ll wait up for him.”

She gave Peggy a quick hug and told her give the boys a kiss from her before she took her seat again. Waiting for the stands to clear and the team to head back to the locker room, she thought about how Bucky had been acting tonight. What was it about this day? She’d pushed down the real reason for her misgivings all day, but now she was forced to admit to herself that she’d had Bucky on her mind since the moment she’d awoken this morning. That was nothing unusual for her - she’d been in love with him for so long, it was as natural for her to think about him throughout the day as it was for her to breath. This was different, though. For the first time, she felt like something had shifted between them, but how? They’d hung out at his place the night before he’d flown out to LA, but it wasn’t anything special, just some pizza, beer, and a movie on Netflix. Something had happened between that night and this one, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was.

When the stands were all but empty, she finally started making her way to the locker room. The security guards knew her at this point and waved her on as she weaved her way through the hallway under the stadium. The locker room was full of flashing lights and the din of a couple dozen people speaking all at once. A few of the guys gave her a smile and a wave as she wove her way toward Bucky’s locker. Her brow furrowed when she saw he wasn’t there.

“He hasn’t come off the field yet,” Steve said as he came up behind her.

She turned and gave him a hug before congratulating him on the win. Passing on the message from Peggy, she finally asked, “Why is he still out there?”

Steve shook his head. “He’s been in a daze all day.”

“I know the feeling,” YN said as she thought about her day spent in the clouds.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with him,” Steve lied, praying that YN wouldn’t see right through him. Thankfully, she seemed to be just as distracted as Bucky.

Giving Steve another hug, she began making her way back to the field. The closer she got, the heavier the weight on her heart began to feel. For some reason, she knew that there was a reason why Bucky had chosen not to return to the locker room after the game, but she was scared of what she would find once she found him.

 

 Bucky stood just on the other side of the pitcher’s mound as he watched the sun begin to set beyond the walls of the stadium. Looking down at the grass under his feet, he was taken back to the dream he’d had on the plane that morning. He felt a shift in the air, and he instinctively knew that she was behind him. Just like in his dream, he slowly turned around and watched her cross the field toward him. The light from the fading sun was shining down on her just as he’d dreamt it, but thankfully she was alone. He had a moment of panic as he remembered his vow from earlier, and for a moment, he thought about pushing aside his feelings. Mentally shaking his head, he thought back to the years that they’d been friends. He’d never lied to her before and he would be damned if he started tonight.

Walking toward her, he could feel his resolve begin to strengthen as he realized what he had to do. She was smiling at him like she always did, but there was a hint of confusion in those beautiful eyes of hers. Without a word, he grabbed her hip with one hand as the other came up to cup her jaw. He saw the question in her eyes and he paused for a second as he waited for her to say something. Her hands had come to rest on his chest and he knew she could feel his heart racing in his chest. His gaze never left her eyes as he watched the confusion slowly turn into something else, something he’d never dreamed he’d ever see in her eyes - desire.

Closing the distance between them, he captured her lips with his as his senses drank in everything about her - the way she tasted as her tongue tangled with his, the way she felt as she wound her hands around his neck to pull him flush against her, the sound of her as a moan of pleasure escaped her lips when he playfully nipped at them, the way she smelled as the evening breeze carried a hint of her perfume to him as he struggled to catch his breath, and the way she looked at him with eyes clouded with passion.

She held on to him as though she was drowning and he was her only lifeline. She’d never truly allowed herself to engage in this particular fantasy, but her subconscious occasionally cast him in this role in her dreams from time to time. This was better than any dream she’d ever imagined before, but was it real?

“Why?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper as she struggled to drag air into her lungs.

“I finally realized something this morning - something I should have realized years ago,” he told her as he began to trace the outline of her jaw with one finger.

“What’s that?”

“It was always you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> _Thank you for reading this story!  I hope you enjoyed it!  This is a birthday present for a very dear friend of mine, so it was written with her in mind.  I hope that you were still able to relate to our Reader and enjoy the thought of Bucky in a pair of tight-fitting baseball pants!  I look forward to your comments!_


End file.
